Chapter 2. Moral Skepticism

One of the required lessons taught in American public school concerns the distinction between "facts" and "opinions".

• Different cultures adopt different standards of etiquette and there are no independent, objective standards by which we might judge the behavior of all people.
• The view that there objective moral facts. Objective moral facts that hold independently of people`s subjective states (beliefs and feelings) and the conventions that people establish.

• People sometimes say "what is right for me may not be right for you." What is meant by this? One possibility is Personal Relativism.
• Personal Relativism. The Skeptical theory that the right thing for a person to do is whatever that person believes is right. (For the personal relativist, the fact that a person believes that something is right makes it right for that person to do it.)
• Moral Subjectivism. The skeptical theory that moral statements describe people`s feelings of approval or disapproval.

• The moral skeptic is someone who maintains that there are no objective moral facts.
• The skeptical theory that there are no moral facts.